Get Your Beats Jumpin!

One mixing and production technique that will be present on the vast majority of records you own, especially those recorded in bigger studios with professional engineers, is that of buss compression. It can be hugely useful, both from an artistic and an engineering viewpoint - whether you want to go for that big, pumping, filtered disco sound, or just make sure your track is as fat as possible, buss compression can do wonders for your mix. But can anyone get involved? And how do you get started anyway? Let's look a little deeper....

The pumping disco-house sound, as pioneered by the likes of Daft Punk and their French cohorts, is all about buss compression. A classic example would be 'So Much Love To Give' by Thomas Bangalter and DJ Falcon. You can hear in this track how different everything sounds when the kick comes in. There is life in the the backing samples and loops when the kick drum is not playing - they have headroom and dynamic range. Then the kick thumps in, clobbering a compressor that sits across the whole buss, and the sheer volume of it forces everything else out of the way when the volume reduction kicks in.

To hear this technique really used to its full potential, listen to 'Barbara Streisand' by Duck Sauce. No matter what your opinions on the track itself, the buss compression is something to behold; it uses the compression and release technique outlined above, but also manages to achieve transients on the backbeat to give definition and a crisp top end. This is through a clever combination of a good buss compressor (perhaps the Waves SSL or UAD 4K for instance), and timing – adjust the attack of the compressor very slightly so that it allows some of the transient on your clap or snare through, and consider pulling the note early so that it has slightly more time before the compressor slams the door on it.

Buss compression isn't all about getting a massive house track pumping though. You can use it on any style of music as a central part of your mixdown. Many experienced engineers will put a compressor on their master buss before they even start mixing down. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it is common practise in many studios. It has many advantages - mixing through a compressor means you need much less compression at the channel stage, and thus can bring a mix together much more quickly. It's also often appropriate for dance and rock music in particular (anything with a strong groove and a lot of energy) - as it changes the way you approach a mix, focusing more on drums and bass, then fitting the other elements in around them. For very audible examples, check out some of the late 90's and early '00s techno releases by the likes of Ben Sims and Marco Carola; the intense percussion sounds bounce off each other as they jostle for space, constantly butting up against the threshold of the compressor. It creates an exciting and lively overall sound, less controlled than compressing everything individually.

It needs to be said here that this isn't something you can just try occasionally - it takes time and practise to get used to mixing through a compressor. To get you started, a general rule of thumb for compression settings would be a short attack (less than 10ms), medium-long release (maybe 200ms depending on the tempo of your track, longer if it's a slow track) and a threshold that takes off 3 or 4dB. Put the compressor on before you start mixing, and then don't take it off again!

Your first few mixdowns using this technique may not come off well, but practise makes perfect - it's a little like learning a new set of monitor speakers. Reference your mix often, take plenty of breaks, and persevere to be sure of really getting a handle on it!

Buss compression is a useful tool for all engineers, and you can get on board with it too - it just takes a little time and a good quality compressor. So get yourself a decent plugin, open up that mixdown, and see if you can't make those tracks jump out of the speakers even more!

Stir Some Syncopation Into Your Mix!

Syncopation is one of the basic ingredients of rhythm. It's what makes the difference between a straightforward,stomping beat, and something funky, fluid and interesting.But what is it? Can anyone get in on the act? And can you use it for other things than drums too? Let us shed some light...

Syncopation is, basically, just putting things in the gaps between beats. But not just on 8ths; as this can sound pretty straight too; so use 16th note shuffles to accentuate and emphasise the main beats. The simplest way is to try a quiet snare drum (known as a 'ghost note') just before or after a main kick or snare. See how it leads into, or jerks out of, the beat? It's a technique that most hip-hop or jungle producers will be familiar with already. You can enhance the feel of this even further; for instance if it's a snare preceding a kick, try delaying the kick by half a beat. Now the main beat is displaced by an 8th note too; the listener's attention is grabbed further by the fact that it wasn't where they were expecting. You're creating a 'tension and release' moment.

This technique is common in breakbeat-based music, but that doesn't mean it can't work in house and techno too. A common rhythm heard in Detroit techno, used by the likes of Juan Atkins, is pulling the 4th kick of the bar earlier by a 16th note. This adds a degree of funk to the beat, and sets it apart from the standard 4/4 stomp - but when teamed with the usual hats and claps can still keep the steady groove of house and techno. This kick pattern is also the bedrock of Baltimore Club music, as pushed by Scottie B et al. But it can be switched up - you can pull any one of the kicks off the beat, to add some shuffle to your track while still leaving it straight enough to play in a regular house set.

Ragga and dancehall music is very syncopated; to the point where you could argue it's just a polyrhythm (but that's a discussion for another day). The beat is usually sub-divided into lengths of three 16ths, or if you're looking at it on a grid format, it hits on 1, 4, and 7 (and then repeats on 9, 12 and 15). It makes for a very distinctive groove; team it with a kick on all the fours and you'll have an instant African vibe (or indeed UK Funky).

This isn't all about drums though - you can syncopate anything to make it sound more interesting. To take the dancehall-style rhythm above, a popular groove in dubstep is to have the classic halfstep drumbeat, with a sub-bass hitting on every three 16th notes. Or leads and main riffs - see Redlight's recent hit 'Get Out My Head', where the piano chords switch from being on the beat for the first half of the bar, to a syncopated rhythm in the 2nd half of the bar.

Anything you have that falls on a straight rhythm, you can give consideration to pulling it back and forth off the beat to make it more interesting; as countless jazz and blues masters have said over the years, it's all about the spaces in between the beats. And if you can make these spaces surprising, attention-grabbing, or even just more varied, you'll be half way to making your track a much more interesting listen overall. Whether it's a synth arpeggio, sub bass thump or brass stabs, the rhythm can make all the difference.

So work as hard on the rhythms of your track - from drums and bass to pianos and lead lines - as you do on the melodies and harmonies, and you'll soon find that syncopation can bring life to loops that previously sounded dull and predictable. And you'll be a lot closer to having a groove that's ready to make into a full arrangement!

Fire Up Your Beats!

After the kick drum, in dance music the most important part of your beat is arguably the 'backbeat'. This is what falls on beats two and four of the bar (while beat one is called the 'downbeat') and usually features a snare, clap or similar. Getting the backbeat right can really enhance the character and groove of a good beat, but so many people fail to maximise the potential, opting for a dull, or rigidly quantised sound. So let's consider some of the options you can use to make sure your beat really shines...

First though, there's the issue of what you need your backbeat to do. In general, the bigger your tune sounds, the less room for manoeuvre you have in this area. A raging DnB or dubstep tune will need something correspondingly massive to cut through the mix, and thus often make use of what is known to many as the 'Pendulum Snare'. This is basically a rock-sounding snare with loads of weight, a big EQ boost around 200Hz, next to nothing in the way of transients and perhaps a gated reverb to boot. It's not particularly interesting, or original, but it certainly will dominate a busy mixdown.

If you can afford more space in your mix then you'll have a lot more options. Claps are a lot of fun; get hold of a good sample pack (or even take a mic and record some yourself) and get them into a sampler. Make sure they're not just the standard drum machine jobs - organic, live sounding claps are the way forward here. Now stack up three or four or more to all play at the same time, and start to tweak the timing - pull a couple of them early, before the beat, and have a couple starting a touch later. Combine this with some tight reverb and subtle panning (or a slight stereo-spread plugin effect) and you'll have a clap that really catches the ear, with a fresh live sound, ideal for hip hop, funk, deep house and more. Check some early 2000's era Timbaland beats if you want to hear how this technique can really be used effectively.

Rimshots are another essential tool. The classic Roland 505 rimshot sound is a staple of garage records, but the rimshot has many other uses in dance music. For instance, it can be pitched down and used atop a kick drum, to give a crisp, woody sound that emphasises the beat without jumping out of the mix - as DJ Sneak shows on many of his house tracks. The short duration of a rimshot means it's great for adding dynamics to a lifeless sound - if a snare sounds overly crunchy and flat, try high-passing a rimshot and layering it on top to get a transient on the snare without altering the character too much.

Another way of making the backbeat stand out, especially in a crowded mix, is to layer some finger snaps on top. These can be high-passed at a fairly high frequency so that they don't clash with the main character of the snare or clap, for instance 3kHz, and when combined with some careful reverb can give an impression of space and definition. Layer up two or three such samples to add interest, and again, adjust the timing of each so that they spread out across the beat and give a looser, funkier feel.

Of course, there are plenty of other sounds you can use to make your backbeat distinctive in a busy drumbeat; a vocal sound (just a syllable, like an 'uh' sound for instance), a metallic hit with a slapback delay, the sound of breaking glass - the world is your oyster. The more unusual you can make the sound, the easier it will be to make the mixdown work too - as the texture will stand out naturally, without having to compete for volume.

In all of these examples, playing with the timing and pulling your samples off the quantise grid is essential. It can totally change the feel of a beat, and you'll be surprised how far off the grid you can come before it sounds wrong - pull a sound a long way forwards and it will become what drummers know as a 'flam', while pushing it later will give a lazy, languid feel, ideal for disco and funk. It also helps with maintaining a solid, loud mixdown - something that plays fractionally before the beat will be audible at a much lower level than something that has to compete with the kick and everything else that's playing exactly on that beat. So it makes good engineering sense too!

All in all, the backbeat is an integral part of dance music, and one that can fundamentally influence the feel and groove of your track - so it's worth spending some time and exploring all available options to make sure it's really right. Hopefully these words will have given you a few new ideas, so fire up that beat and make some noise!

Get Your Music Heard!

We've said on this blog plenty of times that you need to be getting your sounds out there as much as possible - sending your tracks and mixes to blogs, labels, DJ's that may play them out, and so on. But we've not spent much time delving into what you should actually say in these mails. And it makes a big impact - sending the wrong email is no better than sending nothing at all. In fact, it could even be worse if you find yourself on someone's spam list. So lets take a look at some of the do's and don'ts of this tricky area...

The most important aspect is to get to the point. The first couple of lines of your email should say what the mail is and what's contained within it. Bloggers and DJs can get dozens of promo mails a day; more than they could realistically listen to, and a huge proportion are completely irrelevent - indie-pop bands sending promos to dubstep blogs and so on. So straight away, your mail should set out exactly what's contained; what the music sounds like, any DJ's that have been playing it out, and so on. Leave the bio and other information until further down.

The next big issue is to have a streamable link, preferably that the user can skip through. Soundcloud is perfect for this type of thing, even a Youtube link will do. This really can't be emphasised enough. Connection speeds are getting better, but still nobody wants to be downloading a 15MB file before they can give it a quick spin. And making the recipient jump through all the hoops to complete a MegaRapidSend download could put them off altogether. Make it as easy as possible for the recipient to preview the track and there's a better chance they will actually do so. Email attachments are not much better - many people have settings that will block attachments over a certain size, precisely so they don't get spammed with mp3s.

You should also personalise your email as much as possible. No-one likes to see a blatantly generic mail, and especially if you're looking to get signed or get a DJ to play your tracks, you should explain why they might be interested in you. This brings us on to that classic promo error - the BCC fail. Your author receives at least one mail a day which is CC'd to about 300 other random addresses, from magazine accounting departments to PR companies, and the first reaction is to consider it a low priority - with all those addresses, if one recipient doesn't deal with it, someone else might pick it up. It also annoys people to see that their email address is being sent so far and wide - so make sure you at least use the BCC function!

Fortunately, in the internet age, it's no longer really necessary to have a huge and impressive looking introductory mail. A big HTML email may look clever, if it displays properly, but in these days of instant information, people just want the facts. A jazzy press pic, a lengthy biography explaining how you got your first set of decks aged just four, the reasons behind why you made this or that track - all basically irrelevant. You can cover all that with a link to your website (where, of course, all this information should be easily accessible). It's highly frustrating to be scrolling through an email full of information looking for the one piece that really counts - where you can hear the track!

So what an email should look like? Well, it should be short, concise, and well-written - you don't want people thinking you're as slapdash with your music as you are with your spelling. It should include a brief description of what the music is like, and any recommendations that you can think of - DJs who are already supporting it, labels that have previously released your work, etc. It should include links to stream and download the music, perhaps a recent mix, and links to your website or facebook page where people can find more information if they choose. If you can include any personal gambit to the recipient, to make sure they realise you're mailing them directly instead of just spamming a list you found on the internet, then so much the better. And last but not least, be polite!

It's really not rocket science, but it's something that so many people get wrong, so often. Waffling emails, sent to someone who wouldn't be interested anyway, with links to some pop-up farm download site... they all make the promo experience dour and tedious. Follow these simple rules and you may find you start getting a much better response from your mailouts. So next time you're composing a promo mail, bear some of this in mind.... and good luck!